Social Mobility

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Social Mobility Summer SchoolsNew
Opportunities White Paper

• Bev Thomas
• Deputy Director
• HE Widening Participation and Quality Teaching

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our ability to identify the genetic and
environmental factors that contribute to talents
such as creativity are too complex for us to
currently predict. In the absence of such wisdom
our only recourse is to provide all children with
the opportunities to pursue their passions and
dreams. Mario R. CapecchiThe Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine 2007
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Widening Participation and Fair Access

• Goes to the heart of social justice and economic
  necessity
• Over 50 of young people from all social classes
  say they aspire to go to university
• Talent and hard work should determine your
  success in life, not background
• Of those who come in the top 20 of test results
  at age 11, young people eligible for free school
  meals are around half as likely to attend
  university as those who are not

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Full-time Young Participation by Socio-Economic
Class (FYPSEC)
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Evidence HE Performance Indicators
Source HEFCE/HESA
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What are we doing to widen participation?

• The Aimhigher Programme
• Aimhigher Associates
• Widening Participation Allocation
• The Office of Fair Access
• Financial Support for Students
• HEIs own outreach
• HEI/School links
• National Council for Educational Excellence
• Improved IAG for young people

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New Opportunities White Paper

• Published in January by the Prime Minister
• Announces a wide-ranging package of investment
  and support from across Government for people to
  make the most of their potential throughout their
  lives giving them lifelong chances to succeed.

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New Opportunities White Paperwiden
participation and fair access to higher education

• Working with DCSF to guarantee that by 2012,
  pupils from low income backgrounds who are
  roughly in the top 50 per cent of performers get
  a comprehensive package of assistance to get to
  university
• 11 selective universities increasing outreach
  work to identify talented students from
  disadvantaged backgrounds to offer them the
  chance to show what they can achieve, given the
  chance

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New Opportunities White Paperwiden
participation and fair access to higher education

• Universities to publish details of what they are
  doing to raise aspirations and identify talent
  among young people from all backgrounds
• Making it simpler to go to university after an
  apprenticeship, working with UCAS to incorporate
  apprenticeship frameworks into the UCAS points
  system by 2010

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2012 Guarantee

• An ambition that every such child should
• have an early experience of what higher education
  is like, and later a more sustained one
• benefit from regular mentoring
• go to a school with structural links to a
  university, where teachers are equipped to
  properly identify and nurture their talent,
  including the offer of appropriate GCSEs,
  A-levels and Diplomas
• get high-quality information, advice and guidance
  on their choice of subject and university and
• for those with the most potential, be sought out
  and invited to a summer school or similar
  experience of higher education.

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Summer Schools

• Resource intensive intervention
• Need to target effectively
• Identifying and nurturing talent
• Part of a programme of interventions
• Positive evaluation
• Need to maximise impact
• Building a partnership
• Embedding stronger HEI/school links
• Engaging teachers
• Winning hearts and minds

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Universities should make demands on schools to
identify and nurture talent and be actively
engaged in the transformation of schools. In his
Mansion House speech this year, the prime
minister said he would like every secondary
school to have a higher education
partnership.John Denham MPThe Guardian, 25
September 2007
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Thank you